|
|
|
Sideways Jack-o-Lanterns 
Make this year's pumpkins your most fun jack-o-lanterns ever!
Perhaps you have seen jack-o-lanterns like these before -- with the pumpkins on their sides, the stem for a nose and dried beans for eyes.
Or perhaps you have seen some of Saxton Freymann's other "produce people" (like the poster in the Richfield Library's stairwell).
What you may not know is that these are the easiest jack-o-lanterns to make. And that they make fun decorations that keep for weeks -- much longer than a regular jack-o-lantern. And you can still cook with them when Halloween is over!
If you want to try making a jack-o-lantern like those in Saxton Freymann's books you'll need a few things first:
- A (preferably wrinkly) pumpkin with a stem that has "personality potential"
- A sharp, pointed knife to make small, shallow incisions (an Exacto knife may be ideal, but a pointy paring knife works fine)
- Some kind of dried bean for eyes -- black eyed peas are best! (Lin's carries for 99¢)
- A "touch of whimsy"
First (before you choose your pumpkin, hopefully), take a long look at the stem end of the pumpkin.
Try to find a pumpkin that has a stem that would work as a nose (maybe a long, twisty, witches type nose?) AND has
two wrinkles that would work for eyebrows, in relation to the nose. Use your imagination! Squashes, gourds and some decorative pumpkins (like the white ones -- for a ghost pumpkin) can work well too!
Think of different kinds of expressions: sneezing, glaring, surprised, and so on.
If you aren't sure of an expression, try drawing different faces lightly on the pumpkin until something clicks.
Make two very small incisions for the eyes, just inside or slightly underneath opposite wrinkles.
Insert a black eyed pea in each "socket" -- the black dot looks just like a pupil! Try different positions -- you can make them cross-eyed, or looking one way or the other.
Then, beneath the "nose," carve an appropriate mouth using incisions no deeper than 1/4 inch. Remember you can scrape away the skin, inbetween incisions, to expose "teeth." Or you can even carve a mouth all the way through, as pictured above.
You don't need to be symmetrical in all this. Remember, crooked expressions look great -- and can be startlingly realistic (think Dick Cheney)!
You may need to prop them up, or make a thin slice off the side/"bottom" to keep it from rolling.
Set several out together to make a "choir" of spooky, leering, laughing faces.
Then, watch people as they walk closer to your jack-o-lanterns -- first puzzled... then, AHA! Their faces will light up with recognition and delight!
Happy Halloween from the Richfield Mall!
|
|
|
|
|
|
arts